Wilhelm Wittekind came from a long-established Jewish family the roots of whom can be traced back to the beginning of the 19^th century. He was born in Bad Kissingen on April 1, 1861 as the son of Simon Wittekind and his wife Klara, née Hamburger, and had an older sister Sabine who was born in 1853. His older brother Aron had died shortly after his birth in November 1859. In 1891, he married Fanny Mendle from the Swabian Fischbach in Ansbach who moved to Bad Kissingen afterwards. Between 1892 and 1903, the four children were born: Simon *(1892), Paula (*1898), Arthur (*1900) and Max (*1903). Wilhelm Wittekind ran a textile shop at Marktplatz which he presumably took on from his father Simon Wittekind who died in 1889. His mother died in 1922 at the very old age of 97. “Villa Paula” in Promenadestrasse was the place of residence of the Wittekind family.

Wilhelm Wittekind was violently attacked by local SS men during the Nazi Era. When he went into the town in order to buy rolls on the morning of August 19, 1935, he was brutally beaten up by the two SS men Ernst W. and Arnold R. and lost his conscience. The 74-year-old man assumed the reason for this aggressive behavior was an incident about a week earlier. When he had passed the hairdresser’s shop Englert in which the two SS men worked, he had inadvertently touched a bicycle that was set up there and knocked it over. He repeatedly tried to set it up again but didn’t succeed in doing that. Ernst W. got angry because of that and insulted him as a “stinking Jew”. Few days later, he and his colleague saw a good opportunity to take revenge on Wilhelm Wittekind, especially as there were no eye-witnesses present, and beat him up. When the police started to investigate the incident because of an article in “Mainfränkische Zeitung”, the two SS men tried to whitewash their brutal behavior by making Wilhelm Wittekind look responsible for it. They accused him of having spat in front of the barber shop several times in their presence and provoked them by that. Wilhelm Wittekind strongly rejected that statement in his interrogation by Kriminalkommissar Schmidt. He said it was not true and assured that he had been beaten up by the two SS men without any reason. Wilhelm Wittekind abstained from filing charges, and the two hitmen remained unpunished. On the contrary, they were commended by their superior Karl Meder, the leader of Kissingen “SS-Sturm 7/56” for their behavior. 

Wilhelm Wittekind died on July 16, 1935 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Bad Kissingen. His wife later moved to Leipzig and could – just like her sons Max and Simon – emigrate to South Africa in time, where she lived in Johannesburg.